The present invention relates to improvements in grinding machines and analogous machine tools, and more particularly to improvements in grinding or like machines which are equipped with magazines for spare tools. The term "grinding machine" is intended to embrace machine tools which can be used for grinding, polishing, honing, lapping and/or analogous treatment of workpieces by rotary material removing, smoothing and analogous tools.
It is already known to provide a magazine for spare tools in a wide variety of machine tools, among others in grinding machines. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,804,727 to Schmidt discloses an internal grinding machine with a chute for supply of fresh grinding wheels serving to replace successive worn grinding wheels on the tool spindle. The fresh wheels are disposed in a common plane so that their peripheral surfaces contact one another. The mechanism which effects the replacement of a spent wheel with a fresh wheel is designed to remove the spent wheel from the tool spindle, to deliver the removed spent wheel to a disposal location, to remove the foremost fresh wheel from the chute, to transport the thus removed fresh reel to the spindle, and to attach the fresh wheel to the spindle. Even though the patented grinding machine is capable of replacing spent or damaged grinding wheels with successive fresh reels and of disposing of the spent or damaged grinding wheels, the mechanism which is utilized for removal and disposal of spent wheels and for withdrawal, transfer and application of successive fresh wheels is bulky, complex and expensive. Moreover, the just discussed chute and mechanism add little of value to the versatility of the patented grinding machine due to the inability of such machine to reuse one or more grinding wheels.
German Auslegeschrift No. 20 24 212 discloses a magazine which is remote from the machine and wherein the grinding wheels are coaxial with one another. Mechanisms are provided for transport of grinding wheels between the machine and the magazine. Such mechanisms are designed to effect several transfers of a grinding wheel during transport between the magazine and the tool spindle. This contributes to the cost of the assembly including the machine, the magazine and the transfer mechanisms, to the length of intervals which are required to effect the transfer of a grinding wheel, and to the space requirements of the assembly. Moreover, the assembly which is disclosed in the just mentioned German publication also lacks pronounced versatility because it is designed to transport tools in a single direction, namely, to replace spent or damaged grinding wheels with fresh grinding wheels.